Craig T. Nelson has cemented his place in Hollywood history with starring roles in Coach and Poltergeist among other projects. But there was a time early in his career that he abandoned it all to live off the grid in a cabin.
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Nelson tried to break into Hollywood twice. His first came in the 1970s when he attempted a run at a standup career. But when his mom passed away a few years later, he used an inheritance to buy some land in Northern California. He built a cabin with no running water or electricity.
Nelson used the next seven years to go on an emotional journey of self-discovery.
"And that was a seven-year journey of absolute struggle, having never built anything before," he told Fox News. He made the decision after his friend gave him a book on log cabins. He said it "showed me a weakness and a character defect that I was carrying, which was a lack of patience. And I have no knowledge of how to do this. And so I had to learn. And you learn with a family. I had two kids at the time. Noah, my youngest son, was born there up in the mountains."
Craig T. Nelson On Early Career
From there, he continued his journey of self-discovery.
He continued, "And eventually it got done. It got done with community, it got done with help from people that you normally wouldn't go to and or ask for help. And I learned, and so I was an apprentice plumber. I was a surveyor. I logged. I was a janitor. I taught school. I mean, I did anything I could to make some money and ended up on food stamps, of course, and had to eventually hitchhike back to Hollywood and try to establish myself as some kind of actor."
Taking those early risks is what led to his career. He cemented his acting legacy with the roles he would take up in the 1980s. At 80-years-old, Nelson also continues to act. More recently, he's appearing as Buck, a farmer who makes a bet on the Green Bay Packers, in the film Green and Gold.
"The early career is all about that. It's, you know, evading bankers, really, hanging up on the collection people and finding ways of talking to them, which gives you some insight into how vicious that can be," he also said. "The struggle, I think, is where you can certainly find identification, at least in terms of the various jobs that I had to perform to just get by and make a living while I was trying to become something I had no idea what I was trying to become."
